According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the United States has the highest prison population per capita in the world. In 2009, for example, 1 out of every 135 U.S. residents was incarcerated. Generally, inmates convicted of felony offenses serve long sentences in prison (e.g., federal or state prisons), whereas those convicted of misdemeanors receive shorter sentences to be served in jail (e.g., county jail). In either case, while awaiting trial, a suspect or accused may remain incarcerated. During his or her incarceration, an inmate may have opportunities to communicate with the outside world.
By allowing prisoners to have some contact with friends and family while incarcerated, the justice system aims to facilitate their transition back into society upon release. Traditional forms of contact include telephone calls, in-person visitation, conjugal visits, etc. More recently, technological advances have allowed jails and prisons to provide other types of visitation, including individual-to-individual videoconferences, which may be typically referred to as “video visitation,” and online chat sessions.
Traditional communication services provide residents of controlled-environment facilities (such as correctional facilities) including allowing residents (inmates) to place outbound phone calls to non-residents of the controlled-environment facility. Additionally, non-residents can typically schedule video visitation with residents (inmates) of the controlled-environment facility. Other types of communication available to controlled-environment residents include the ability to exchange email and canned text messages between residents of the controlled-environment facility and non-residents, and in some cases, between residents of the same facility and/or other facilities.
Typically, calling restrictions currently in use in controlled-environment facility calling platforms are configured to either be on or off. Although currently controlled-environment facility staff does not have visibility to call volumes, if facility staff notices, or is informed of, an increase in phone use by a particular resident, they must manually turn on calling restrictions, which would not allow the resident to make (or receive) calls through the controlled-environment facility calling platform. Similarly, removal of such call restrictions would have to be manually carried out by facility personnel.
Over the past several years, the above-mentioned sharp increase in the U.S. inmate population has not been followed by a proportional increase in the number of prison or jail staff. To the contrary, budget pressures in local, state, and federal governments have made it difficult for correctional facilities to maintain an adequate number of wardens, officers, and other administration personnel. Hence, many correctional facilities are often unable to sufficiently, manually, regulate calling by inmates in a particularized manner based on a particular resident's, or group of residents', actions or behavior.